Ward Ordering

Using PTS 5's inherent customisability it's quite simple to set up a basic ward stock top up system, wherein wards themselves book in orders that the pharmacy then dispense and deliver like they would an internal prescription.

Prerequisites

• For this feature to work in any meaningful way, you will need a populated drugs table.
• To have the requisition form reach pharmacy automatically in an A4 format, an A4 printer must be shared and mapped as a network printer. The installation process is broadly the same as installing a PTS label printer with the exception of the drivers and page size.
• A4 requisition forms were introduced in PTS v5.0.3.0. Older versions can proceed using normal labels or we can arrange a free software update to implement A4 forms for you.

Setup

The setup process involves creating a uniquely configured prescription type for this purpose (in the full knowledge that this doesn't represent a prescription at all in reality), and making changes to the ward staff role so they can book in this prescription type themselves.

1. As a PTS administrator, create a new prescription type named "Ward Order" or similar.
2. Enter the prescription type details as appropriate for your needs, with the following specifics:
   1. Under demographic options, set everything to "no" except for drugs and dose units. Drugs should be either Single or Multiple (i.e. whether a ward can order one or multiple drugs in each order). Dose units should be set to "yes". You can also choose to limit drug selection to just the ward's own drug list.
   2. Under booking-in options, set number of patients to 1. This might seem odd but this allows us to overcome a feature that normally prevents drugs being added to a prescription that has no patient. Turning off all of the demographic options has much the same effect as no patients.
   3. OPTIONAL: Set Start Type to Never Start to have the order begin in "pending" status and allow pharmacy to manually start the prescription rather than it have it start immediately.
   4. OPTIONAL: If you do that, you may also go to Booking-in options and set "Print labels when" to "Status pending".
   5. Set the label style to Requisition Form (A4).
   6. Under applicable dispensaries, remove everything automatically added to the list, and then add the applicable dispensaries back in whilst selecting the A4 printer as the automated printer.
   7. The scanning sequence, target times and so on can be set how you see fit. The prescription type is obviously compatible with collection and delivery if you choose to use those components.
3. Next go to the roles setup page and locate the ward staff role:
   1. Under permissions, set BOOKIN to Yes.
   2. Under type permissions, set everything to View except for the new Ward Order prescription type, which should be set to Create (meaning Book In). Although, note that if using the controlled drugs module wards may need permission to create a CD order prescription type too.
   3. Click save and confirm the options to apply the changes to existing ward users.
4. It's important not to make the mistake of trying to limit booking in permissions using the booking in activity.
5. RECOMMENDED: Make changes to your internal pharmacy user views to separate the new prescription type into its own dedicated section. Take care to specifically include Pending prescriptions.
6. RECOMMENDED: Make similar changes to the ward's user views.

Direct link to booking in screen for wards

As an alternative to training ward staff on how to access the booking in screen it's possible to create a URL shortcut that will automatically log them in and load the booking in screen. This shortcut could then be placed on their desktop or intranet page etc.

The shortcut requires that the ward's username and password is included in the URL. If this is a problem or there is no mechanism to roll it out properly, they should use the normal booking in link via the actions menu.

The URL is constructed like this:

e.g. "http://YourPTSServer/PTSWeb/?ShowBookIn=True&User=WARDUSER&Password=WARDPASSWORD&IgnoreWindowsUsername=True"

1. YourPTSServer
   The name of your PTS server. This is the same server name that you use to access PTS on all the PCs in the pharmacy.
2. PTSWeb
   The name given to your PTS application during initial installation. This is normally PTSWeb, but again it will be what all the pharmacy PCs are pointed to.
3. ShowBookIn
   Set this to True to load the booking in screen.
4. User
   The username of the ward user.
5. Password
   The corresponding password.
6. IgnoreWindowsUsername
   Set this to True. This instructs PTS not to attempt to login based on the Windows user account, like it might do normally.

Usage

The simplified booking in screen that wards will now have access to.

With this setup, ward users will now have access to the booking in screen either via a shortcut or the normal link via the actions menu.

The booking in screen should only present them with the option to enter a drug and the number of units they want to order. They should simply enter this information and click the Book-in button. This will automatically print the A4 requisition form to the dispensaries automated printer and book the prescription in to any relevant user views.

From then on, the "prescription" is progressed, completed, collected and delivered like any other PTS prescription.